resorts on the coast the Isles of Shoals is the best ground to study
human nature on. People lose their artificial ways in that atmosphere
and their peculiarities are brought out distinctly, as oil brings out
the veins in black walnut. The epic gift, however, is very different
from the lyric and the two are not often united in the same person. Mrs.
Thaxter's prose writings are almost as rare as Whittier's. She published
a detailed account of a murder that was committed on Haley's Island
about twenty years ago;--what would seem to be a peculiar subject for a
cultivated person to fasten on--and yet she succeeded in giving it a
good deal of dignity. One consequence of this has been that hundreds of
people cross over every summer to Smutty Nose to stare at the miserable
old shanty where the event took place, though there is absolutely
nothing to be seen there.
It was a choice occasion in the old Shoals days when Mrs. Thaxter
consented to read Browning or Tennyson to her friends. I think it was
the finest reading I ever heard, simply because it was neither dramatic,
rhetorical, nor elocutionary. It was plain, distinct reading with just
enough of the dramatic element to give fullness to the meaning,--and
with such a voice! Why is it that some people who have unpleasant voices
are yet able to sing sweetly, and others who cannot sing are able to
read or converse so it is music to hear them? I was formerly acquainted
with an old man, much beyond the period of life when singers retire from
the stage, whose voice was nevertheless, as one heard it at some
distance, as musical as a Stradivarius.
With all her frankness and fearlessness, she was as sensitive to
personal influences as poets usually are; and persons who called on her,
who lacked delicacy of feeling, not only wearied her, but sometimes
caused her positive suffering. In such cases she fortified herself with
what she called a strong dose of conversation; would talk with great
volubility on all possible subjects, as if in this manner to keep the
unpleasant influence at a distance. "I wish all good people," she said,
"were pleasant, and all the bad people disagreeable; for then life would
be a more simple affair than it is now. The world is such a mixture that
I never quite know how to take it."
At times she was a merciless critic. An admiring Quaker in Philadelphia
wrote some verses in honor of Whittier, which were presented to Mrs.
Thaxter for her approval. When she was asked how she liked them, she
replied, "I do not like it all; it goes humpety, lumpety, dumpety,
bump;" and immediately changed the subject of conversation.
On another occasion she took up a volume of poetry which had been
printed for private circulation, and said, "There are two really fine
poems in this, which is more than can be usually said of such
collections." Then she read them to us with such expressive grace as
might almost make poetry out of Latin grammar. One was called the "Whip
of the Sky," and the other was a sonnet about Pompeii.
She early discovered in herself the mesmeric power of a spiritist; and
Wasson was present at a _seance_ which she gave at the house of a
friend in Newburyport, reporting messages from another world to various
persons in the room. She thus naturally became a believer in spiritism,
and finally a Theosophist; but she found that such supernatural
performances were physically injurious and mentally demoralizing, so
that in later years she rarely indulged in them.
One cold, foggy evening in August, 1868, we were gathered in the parlor
of the Thaxter cottage, when some one proposed that we should make an
experiment with planchette. So the little triangular board was produced,
with a long pencil in the apex, and a large sheet of brown paper. Mrs.
Thaxter placed her left hand on it, and Mrs. H., a New York lady, placed
her right hand, while the rest of us formed a circle around the table.
In five or ten minutes, planchette began to move, and wrote out "John
Laighton," in plain, bold letters. "He was my great-uncle," said Mrs.
Thaxter; "and there used to be a proverb in Portsmouth, 'As honest as
John Laighton.'" Then she wrote on the paper: "Where is my father?"
A few minutes afterward, Mrs. H. closed her eyes, and fell back in her
chair, as if she were fainting. Suddenly coming to herself, she seized
the pencil from planchette and wrote rapidly on the paper, while Mrs.
Thaxter held her other hand. She was at the left of Mrs. Thaxter, but I
cannot remember now whether Mrs. H. wrote with her right or left hand.
Mrs. Thaxter was greatly excited and looked all the time in Mrs. H.'s
face in the most earnest and impressive manner. Mrs. H. behaved like a
person under the influence of strong emotion, and continued to write
intermittently until the sheet of paper was nearly covered. Mrs. Thaxter
read the sentences eagerly, but without saying a word. Several times Mr.
H. entreated his wife to desist, but she paid no attention to him. The
whole performance lasted nearly half an hour, and when it was over, Mrs.
Thaxter said, "They are all answers to questions which I asked of my
father," and remained very grave and quiet during the rest of the
evening.
The next forenoon we examined the paper and found the writing on it was
intelligible, but at the same time conveyed no real information. They
were such answers as a woman might herself suggest to a person who was
slow in making a reply. One of them was, "You will know everything
perfectly when the right time comes." Mr. H. said, "My wife never could
have imagined all this; there must have been some occult communication
between her and Mrs. Thaxter. Neither do I think she ever heard before
of John Laighton." Mrs. Thaxter evidently was satisfied that she had
received messages from her father, who had been dead about two years;
and though the rest of us did not credit this, the fact in itself seemed
marvellous enough.
When some one remarked that he would give five dollars at any time to
see a ghost, Mrs. Thaxter retorted, "I think you would give fifty to
have him leave you again."
Where the poetical talent of the Laighton family came from is a rare
mystery. Both of Mrs. Thaxter's brothers inherited a share of it. A poem
of Oscar's was published in the "Atlantic" many years ago, and
afterwards included in her first volume of poetry. Cedric wrote a very
amusing parody on his sister's "Little Sandpiper," and sent it to her
when she was staying in Boston. The scene was represented in winter when
there wasn't any little sandpiper.
Mrs. Thaxter's poetry, however, was the making of Appledore as a summer
resort. Between 1865 and 1875 thousands of people came there every
summer to catch a sight of her. How she dared to go to the dinner-table
in the face of such a multitude, I do not know; but after a time she
retained a body-guard of friends, old and young, who were quite
sufficient to keep intruders at a distance; and they could not be
prevented from walking around her cottage, peering in at the windows,
and stealing an occasional flower from her garden. Some even walked
boldly into her parlor to demand an autograph. She received strange
letters also from her unknown admirers. One was from a woman who wished
to come to see her, but was afraid to do so on account of the green
snakes which Hawthorne speaks of as inhabiting Appledore. (Hawthorne
accidentally caught one of these pretty reptiles by the tail, and was
not a little startled by it.) Another was from a naval officer who had
been forcibly retired to a plantation in Maryland. I suppose she was
secretly pleased by this rude homage of the vulgar, but no one knew
better that the approval of her friends Weiss and Whittier was worth the
whole of it.
Meanwhile social life at Appledore had risen to a height. Mrs. Thaxter
welcomed every one who had a claim upon her recognition. Open table was
her motto, rather than exclusiveness; but those who considered
themselves of superior clay found no chairs to sit on in her parlor. Her
cottage was a scene of gaiety by day, and revelry at night. Beautiful
girls, charming women, and distinguished men dazzled the beholder.
Singing and laughter as well as instrumental music could often be heard
there at a late hour. There are no people who are so full of good
spirits in vacation as clergymen and college-professors--it is the
reaction from their well-sustained gravity during the remainder of the
year--and there was no lack of either.
Among them all none was so brilliant as John Weiss, though Eichberg the
violinist came pretty close to him. Both were German Jews; Weiss,
however, having been born in America. He belonged to the same type of
men as James Russell Lowell and David A. Wasson. He was the friend of
both and equal to either in genius. He was the most eloquent preacher in
New England at that time, and as a humorist only second to Lowell, if
indeed second to any. His wit and his preaching were not, however, of a
popular character: something more than phlegmatic common-sense was
required to appreciate them. If he was not so popular as Lowell with the
public, he was more so among his friends, in whose list might be counted
almost every man of note and influence in Boston and vicinity. Bright
flashes of his imagination came like the sudden gleam of a diamond, and
would often convulse the company with laughter when one would least have
expected it.
He was an excellent pantomimist; could perform all the parts in a comedy
himself, and with the help of Fred Loring, or some other, would
improvise a burlesque on almost any well-known play. It was after one of
these performances that Whittier (who sat in his quiet corner enjoying
it as much as an honest Quaker dared to) said to Mrs. Thaxter, "Celia,
thou knowest I have never been to the theatre, but I think at last the
theatre has come to me." Weiss was gay with the gay, but could be
profoundly serious again at a moment's warning, and the biting shafts of
his satire never wounded a human soul.
When some one spoke of the peculiarity of John Brown's spelling he
exclaimed: "So much the better, so much the better! What good would a
Webster's dictionary have been at Harper's Ferry? A whole edition of
them could not have accomplished anything."
He was always ailing, and his friends in college doubted if he would
ever reach maturity; yet he lived to be a grey-haired man, and published
a number of excellent books. When he died, in 1878, there were not
wanting malicious people to spread the report that he died of
intemperance, though the wonder is how he could have lived so long. His
death cast a shadow over the social life at Appledore so that it never
quite recovered its former gaiety. About the same time several
millionaires made their appearance; cottages began to arise upon the
rocks; a small steam-yacht plied like a water-bug between the different
islands, and the place became continually more fashionable and
conventional. Whittier, feeling that he did not belong to this new order
of things, retired to a quiet little inn at West Ossipee, in the White
Mountains.
It was now that Professor John K. Paine, the musical composer,
introduced a new element into the Shoals life. One morning he walked
into Mrs. Thaxter's parlor with a large folio under his arm and said, "I
am going to play you one of Beethoven's sonatas, for I think you will
like it." Mrs. Thaxter was not quite sure that she would, but listened
attentively. There had been a good deal of music before, in a small way;
pupils of Eichberg playing on the violin with piano accompaniment, and
even Eichberg himself,--which was quite a treat, though a single violin
can never express a wide range of musical ideas. Beethoven's music she
had also heard indifferently performed by young lady amateurs; but this
was another affair.
Professor Paine is rather an organist than a pianist, and does not
pretend to rare technical skill; but what is much better, he understands
the music as only players like Rubinstein and Von Bulow can understand
it, and he brought out the meaning with such joyous fullness as even the
master himself might have been pleased to hear. It was a revelation to
Celia Thaxter: it was easy to see there was no affectation in her
enjoyment; neither did she lack words to express her delight. "Mr.
Paine," said a classical gentleman who was present, "your playing
reminds me of what Cicero said of Caesar's Commentaries, that a fool
might think he could improve on it, but a wise man would not like to
try." The Professor was so much pleased with Mrs. Thaxter's frank
enthusiasm, that he dedicated a sonata he was composing to her, which
was performed the following winter in Boston, and greatly praised also
by the critics.
Piano recitals and concertos thus became the fashion at Appledore, and
classical music was in good demand. Its refining and quieting influence
on the little community was quite perceptible. It produced a change like
the transition from flamboyant Gothic architecture to the pure Grecian
style. At first only a few came to hear it: then the parlor was filled.
The piazza became crowded, and finally gentlemen were obliged to find
places on the rocks outside.
It is one thing to hear music in a crowded concert-room with gas-light
and bad air just after we have left the jarring discords of the street;
and quite a different affair to listen to it with congenial spirits in
the summer air of these islands, which seems to have been made for
attuning the senses to fine perceptions. To enjoy any kind of art, the
mind needs to be like a clean slate on which every mark tells.
In 1881 Professor Paine improved his good reputation both here and in
Europe by composing what is called his Greek music; that is, an overture
to the play of "Oedipus Tyrannus," which was acted at Harvard in the
spring of that year. Of course his seashore friends wished to hear him
play it himself, and after the applause which followed had subsided, he
said: "A little approbation is all the reward I get for my compositions.
A good deal of money was made out of the Greek play by speculators, but
none of it came to me." There was a general expression of regret; and
then Mrs. Thaxter said, as if to herself, "If I were only the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts I know what I would do." A physician at
the house that summer warned Mrs. Paine never to let her husband work so
hard again as he had that year.
I remember William Hunt, the portrait painter, in 1872 wheeling his
youngest child, a beautiful boy named Paul, in a go-cart in front of the
cottage. He looked like an Arab, with a beard nearly to his waist, and a
decidedly Semitic head; but he had an aristocratic style, and the air of
a man who was used to command. His friends congratulated themselves on
his resemblance to Titian, and to the French artist Horace Vernet.
Despite his proud bearing he was a tender-hearted man, and when in
trouble always went to Levi Thaxter, who was a rarely sympathetic
person. In 1879 he came again to the Shoals, flying from domestic
affliction. He was also suffering from a severe nervous strain, the
result of painting two immense pictures in the hall of the New York
Assembly, at Albany; and was no longer able to work. Either of these by
itself he might have contended against, but both together were too much
for him.
One dark, rainy night he left the Thaxter cottage at a late hour,
looking very sad and gloomy. The next morning his body was found in a
freshwater cistern which had been built in a hollow between the rocks.
There were some who thought that his death might have been accidental,
but old Doctor Bowditch said, "My friends, there was only too much
reason for it." Of all the wrecks on that dangerous coast was not this
the most piteous and tragical! William Hunt narrowly missed being one of
the greatest of painters. Though some of his portraits are wretched
failures, there are others of his pictures that might grace any gallery
in Europe.
Mountain air is better than sea air, both for those who are well and
strong, and generally speaking for invalids; but people go to the sea
because they like it,--for love of the dark blue ocean. Few things are
more monotonous than sailing in a yacht. It is a confining sort of
existence, subjects of conversation soon become exhausted, there are
many inconveniences about it, and being becalmed in a ground swell is
worse than riding in a stage coach on a hot and dusty road; yet how many
men prefer spending their summer vacation in this manner to any other.
It is that rolling, lisping, gurgling, mysterious, unfathomable unity
which attracts them. Earth is the masculine element, sea the feminine;
and all the cycles and epicycles of organic nature have resulted from
these two. It develops imagination and romance in persons who would
never have been suspected of possessing either. No wonder that the
sailor delights in marvelous tales. It is a terrible destroyer, but at
the same time a friend that we cannot do without.
Nowhere perhaps is that closeness to the ocean, this familiarity with
the sea, so strongly felt as at the Isles of Shoals. There is really no
land there: nothing but sky, rock and water. Living there is like a
sea-voyage without the discomforts thereof. During the great storm of
March '52, when the light-house on Minot's Ledge was overturned, an
immense wave rolled across the centre of Appledore from side to side.
There are windows in the hotel on Star Island where one can drop a
pebble into the sea, and go to sleep listening to the murmur of the
waves. Even in summer the surf sometimes runs so high that it is
dangerous to approach the edge of the cliffs; and few people know how
pleasant it is to watch the eddying swirl of the water round the
promontories on the westerly side. One can sail in every direction, and
if the wind does not suit one quarter it always will another. Better
than any sailing, however, is rowing in an open boat at sunset or by
moonlight, with one or two friends.
Their climate is equally remarkable, and Doctor Bowditch considered it,
from its soothing and also stimulating quality, one of the finest in the
world, and much the best on the Atlantic coast. This is owing to their
geographical position, islands on the coast of Maine being afflicted
with cold fogs, and those south of Cape Cod with warm ones. There are no
sultry nights in summer, and the cutting east-winds of Mount Desert are
unknown there. The climate is warmer in April and November than on the
mainland; in May and October about the same. The winters are
disagreeable enough; but there is a kind of glory there in summer, and
the view at night from the piazza of the Oceanic is beautiful beyond all
faculty of description.
WHITTIER.
From under the north star's beam,
Through a region wild and free,
The waters of a mighty stream
Roll onward to the sea.
In the deep clefts of the mountain,
Lie never melting snows;
And there from an icy fountain
A clear cold torrent flows.
When we go to see the Falls of Niagara, we expect to be astonished, and
are not disappointed; though the expectation takes away somewhat from
our sensation. The grand phenomenon makes a strong and permanent
impression on us, and yet there is no feeling of affection mingled with
this. We have seen it once and do not care to visit the place again.
Many pictures have been painted of it, but they are not genuine
pictures, for the human element is wanting in them. Niagara can turn no
mill-wheels, and will float no ships. How different is it with those
scenes of natural beauty which we never heard of and come upon by
surprise--which we remember always with affection and a kindred
interest.
Such were my thoughts many years ago at Amesbury, as I walked on the
banks of the Merrimac and watched the calm, clear current of the river,
as it hastened by, irresistible as time itself. I also reflected how
often the poet Whittier must have walked in that same path; how dear to
him must be that silent flood with its elm-trees, and great rolling
hills; and how in times of darkness and discouragement he must have come
to it for strength and consolation. The beauty of a river depends very
much on its clearness and purity. The Rhine and the Tiber are more
famous than the Merrimac; but their water is muddy and undrinkable.
Indeed the current of Whittier's life might not improperly be compared
to the river beside which he dwelt so long. Commencing in the pure
mountain air of the social and religious seclusion of his sect, the
difficulties and limitations, which in his case waited upon the
acquisition of knowledge, may well be compared to the passage through a
rocky and unfruitful region, leaping as it were from one granite boulder
to another; then no sooner has he gained depth and fulness from contact
with natures like his own than he is caught in the mill-wheels of a
great political revolution, he enters ardently into the anti-slavery
conflict--as he says of himself in the "Tent on the Beach,"
"And one there was a dreamer born,
Who with a mission to fulfill
Had left the muses' haunts to turn
The crank of an opinion mill"--
and finally having escaped past all expectation from this turmoil,
victorious and laurel-crowned, he goes calmly and steadily forward to
the end. What makes this parallel rather surprising in its perfection is
that Concord River empties itself into the Merrimac, and one might fancy
that its waters carried Emerson's magnetic thought and influence to
Whittier's own door. May not the career of any great man be compared to
the course of a river? and especially the lives of our American poets
would seem to resemble in their purity and transparency the rivers of
New England.
Whittier's house, however, does not stand by the river's brim, but near
the centre of the village, almost a mile away. It was a modest looking
structure, in appearance much like the Alcott house at Concord, but not
nearly so well situated. It faces towards the north, and has little land
about it, though there is a vegetable-garden in the rear. Neither is
there any protection for it from the cold blasts of winter. Here he
lived, at first with his sister and after her death with his niece, Miss
Lizzie Whittier, and I believe with another niece, who married a Mr.
Caldwell; but also a large portion of the time quite alone, except for
one or two servants, reading, meditating and writing poetry. A man who
has that kind of work to do, can never be very lonely. The interior of
the house, was plainly and comfortably furnished, and contained some
fine pictures and handsome books, the gifts of Boston friends; but its
chief ornament was the quiet dignity and amiable courtesy of the poet
himself.
The eastern coast of New England is famous for its thunder-storms, and
in the summer of 1872 there was one in the midst of nearly every
afternoon. A number of persons were killed by the lightning that season,
and Whittier also met with a narrow escape. It was one of the last days
of June, and from our piazza we could see the masses of black cloud
rolling down the Merrimac Valley, not thinking of the imminent peril,
which they were bringing to our poet. At the same time Miss Lizzie
Whittier and a lady friend were seated in the room on the right hand of
the front-door, when crash! an electric bolt came through the wall like
a rifle-shot, just above her friend's head, laying her out upon the
floor, shivering a mirror into splinters; then went through the doorway
and meeting John G. Whittier in the front hall, knocked him senseless,
and seizing two slats from a blind it escaped through an open window
into the garden. Miss Lizzie was the first to regain her feet, and her
anxiety and terror, when she saw her uncle lying senseless on the floor,
may readily be surmised. It proved, however, that none of them were
seriously injured, though their heads were confused and unserviceable
for several days, and they did not wholly recover from the effects of
this _coup d' eclair_ until after an excursion to the Isles of
Shoals.
[Illustration: WHITTIER'S HOUSE AT AMESBURY.]